Uzbekistan Nationals Crossed the Border Thanks to Smuggler With ISIS Ties

Uzbekistan Nationals Crossed the Border Thanks to Smuggler With ISIS Ties

CNN reported that a smuggler with ties to ISIS helped over a dozen Uzbek nationals cross the border from Mexico to the U.S.:

While the FBI says no specific ISIS plot has been identified, officials are still working to “identify and assess” all of the individuals who gained entry to the United States, according to a statement from National Security Council spokesman Adrienne Watson. And they are closely scrutinizing a number of the migrants as possible criminal threats, according to two US officials.

Though there is no evidence at this point to justify detaining anyone, the episode was so alarming that an urgent classified intelligence report was circulated to President Joe Biden’s top Cabinet officials in their morning briefing book. For some counterterrorism officials, it shows that the US is deeply vulnerable to the possibility that terrorists could sneak across the southern border by hiding amid the surge of migrants entering the country in search of asylum.

Will the Biden administration finally pay attention to the border crisis?

Well, maybe not. The Obama administration referred to ISIS as the JV squad. NO BIGGIE.

The Department of Homeland Security noticed numerous Uzbekistan nationals requesting asylum earlier this year. But nothing about them requesting asylum “raised any red flags.”

The U.S. released them “pending a court date.”

The government didn’t learn about the ISIS-tied smuggler until later:

“Intelligence reporting alerted us to a human smuggling network working to facilitate the travel of Uzbek nationals to the United States. As with all identified human smuggling networks—which seek to prey on the vulnerable and evade nations’ legal systems—the U.S. government immediately took steps to successfully disrupt it,” National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“There was no indication—and remains no indication—that any of the individuals facilitated by this network have a connection to a foreign terrorist organization or are engaged in plotting a terrorist attack in the United States,” Watson told the DCNF.

U.S. officials think the smuggler does not belong to the group “but more like an independent contractor who has personal sympathies with the organization.”

The FBI worked with Turkey, which arrested the smuggler and others in his network:

For some Biden administration officials, the episode is an example of the system working as it should: intelligence came to light about a particular group of migrants and the US responded with an investigation determining that they did not pose a threat.

“While the FBI has not identified a specific terrorism plot associated with foreign nationals who recently entered the United States at the southern border, we always work with our field offices across the country, as well as our domestic and international partners, to identify any potential illegal activity or terrorism threats,” the FBI said in a statement to CNN.

But others have worries about the many migrants coming from Central Asia:

But the US has not yet located all of the individuals who traveled as part of the network, according to Watson’s statement. And more than 15 of the migrants tracked down are still under scrutiny by the FBI as possible criminal threats, according to one US official.

Some law enforcement and intelligence officials privately expressed concerns that an unusual increase in the number of migrants from Central Asia, a region that isn’t known to be a major source of refugees, didn’t spark more investigation by US border authorities.

“We continually assess our security architecture to ensure that we are best poised to respond to threats to the homeland,” Watson said in her statement to CNN. “Moreover, we will continue to constantly recalibrate our screening, vetting, and processing of those encountered entering the United States to ensure that we are taking into account the most up-to-date information at our disposal and with an unyielding commitment to protecting Americans and the homeland from the full range of potential threats.”

So how many of the people coming from Central Asia, China, and those not from Mexico or South America have help from other terror groups? What do they have to pay? Are there any strings attached?

The government has noticed more people entering the country through Arizona, especially in the Tucson sector. Most come from other places in the world instead of Mexico and South America.

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